Aleppo 'Cowers' As Fighting Flares In And Around Syria's Biggest City

Tuesday in Aleppo, these men from an anti-Assad force were on guard at a checkpoint.

Bulent Kilic AFP/Getty Images

"Ancient Aleppo Cowers Amid Reports of Approaching Syrian Forces."

That's the headline this morning from The New York Times, which says residents of Syria's largest city on Tuesday "fled the streets and cowered indoors, dreading the rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire and the echoing roar of government helicopters." And today, the Times says, people reached by telephone said that "except for the helicopters, the government [had] disappeared" in Aleppo.

As we wrote Tuesday, people in Aleppo and at least one foreign correspondent there were saying the Assad regime had sent fighter jets and helicopters to bomb the eastern part of the city — where anti-Assad rebels were trying to establish control.

Today, The Guardian says, "thousands of troops have been sent to Aleppo as part of a major counter offensive against rebels." And in Damascus, forces loyal to Assad "fired artillery and rocket barrages forcing hundreds of families to flee the area, residents and opposition activists said."

CNN reports that "regime troops" appear to have "regained control of neighborhoods in Damascus, where rebels fought al-Assad's forces last week."

Also today, as The Associated Press reports, there's word that "Turkey sealed its border with Syria to trucks ... cutting off a vital supply line to the embattled nation."